see, this is why i think he needs to come out and give a full account of the events - because it doesn't necessarily have to be binary, and it is in fact possible that he simultaneously "groped" her and doesn't feel it was inappropriate.

like everybody else, i have no information, and am left to fill in the blanks. it's that process of filling in the blanks that is so potentially deadly, as everybody is going to imagine it their own way. and, trust me: most women won't imagine something benign.

he really needs to take control of a narrative...

the way i've imagined it from the scant information i've seen suggests that he grabbed a reporter and pushed her out of the way. and, there are certainly contexts - a day at a festival being one of them - where i would think that kind of behaviour is permissible, while others would think of it as outrageous. the reason is that i'm not a puritan: i don't forbid all not-explicitly-consented-to contact between the sexes a priori, or even ban all sexual advances offhand. there's a tremendous grey area here that we need to re-establish if we want to continue living in a secular, liberal society. i want to hear liberals stand up for that grey area...

which isn't to say that i think this is what happened. as mentioned, it seems to me that what happened was that trudeau didn't want to be interviewed right then and there. but, i'm not going to stand up and denounce all not-explicitly-consented-to-in-advance activities, either, because i don't want to live in that kind of a society.

and, i frankly think that most people don't, either - that trudeau has a lot of potential for forgiveness and sympathy, if he'd just be fucking honest about it, and not make it seem like he's trying to hide something.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/andrew-coyne-did-he-or-didnt-he-trudeau-needs-to-start-making-sense